<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>give me shapes and letters by luvloic</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24923125">give me shapes and letters</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvloic/pseuds/luvloic'>luvloic</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>EXO (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - College/University, ChanSoo - Freeform, Fluff, M/M, Strangers to Lovers, Tsundere Do Kyungsoo | D.O, accounting buds chansoo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:22:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,270</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24923125</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvloic/pseuds/luvloic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Chanyeol is potentially in love and retraces his steps trying to find his answer</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Do Kyungsoo | D.O/Park Chanyeol</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>72</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>give me shapes and letters</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/soojunqs/gifts">soojunqs</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hello friends! i'm back after a long break and I plan to be posting a lot here shortly! thanks for being here because this was due to my dearest @soojunqs like a mONTH AGO THANKS FOR BEING PATIENT LOVIE </p><p>anyways!! enjoy</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>So Chanyeol will admit, he’s in quite a bit of trouble.</p><p>Chanyeol’s in the middle of his first semester in college, excited for the whole university experience and whatnot, making friends, studying his ass off, and drinking way more coffee than he reckons he should be, when he comes to the startling realization that he might be in love. </p><p>Now, to explain why it took over half a semester to realize this, Chanyeol was always the shy kid. He’s this unbelievably adorable, always blushing, bean stalk of a boy who never dated and never broke the rules. A goody two shoes, if you will. And he knows that. </p><p>So Chanyeol had been stumbling into his Accounting 403 class every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of the past nine weeks under the assumption that the ever quiet Kyungsoo who always sat in the seat by the wall (a row down and fourteen seats to the right), sat there on purpose: away from him. They were practically half a room apart, and in an auditorium. That’s rather a big deal. </p><p>Reasonable assumption, right? Wrong. See, Chanyeol may have been shy, but he wasn’t dumb. It took Chanyeol a week or two to really make sense of it, but it was sitting in front of his eyes the whole time: no one was sitting alone besides him and Kyungsoo. This conspiracy of sorts he made up in his head about the handsome, dark knight in the corner leaves only them every week when they’re forced into peer reviews or group analyses. Perfectly left without partners. In his head, Kyungsoo sat away from everyone because he noticed Chanyeol sat away from everyone too. </p><p>It made perfect sense.</p><p>It didn’t prove to be wrong either. </p><p>Week after week, the two fell next to each other for required assignments. They worked through their code tables together, building off of each other’s work, and correcting and catching each other in mistakes, word problems leaving some head scratching here and there, until Chanyeol couldn’t help but stare at the boy next to him. </p><p>He recalls the first time Kyungsoo reviewed his homework, and he leaned over, pointing to a mistake in bold red pen. </p><p>“Right here. You missed including these three columns in your total sums so you need to divide here to make up for that loss.” He said.</p><p>“Oh, okay I see. Where were those columns in the textbook, because I added all the ones in the table…” Chanyeol drifts off.</p><p>“No, they were in the table, you just didn’t see them I guess.” Kyungsoo said bluntly. “Just double check next time.”</p><p>Despite this, Kyungsoo was everything Chanyeol dreamed of. He was smart and had really pretty eyes, not to mention he was actually pretty easy to get along with. He was a little cold to him, but Chanyeol couldn’t help it. </p><p>The boy was so unintentionally alluring, that it was almost impossible not to fall in love with him. Dark hair, darker eyes. Chanyeol couldn’t quite explain what he wanted from him, whether it was his approval or his attention, or maybe even his praise. But he wanted something.</p><p>They exchanged phone numbers for mere convenience. Kyungsoo didn’t even say anything in retaliation, he just held out a hand for Chanyeol’s phone. </p><p>At first, Chanyeol didn’t know what to do with it. It sat in his phone, waiting to be used and carried around like a ball on a chain. It was like money burning a hole in his pocket, except a phone number he wanted so desperately to use. </p><p>And then the taller got an idea.</p><p>This is how he ended up with a message waiting to be sent under his hesitant thumb late in the afternoon one evening.</p><p>	Hey, is there any way you’d want to study for next week’s quiz with me? I figured we<br/>
could be study buddies :)</p><p>Is the smiley face too much?</p><p>He analyzed the message, searching for a typo, glaring it down and bouncing it around his head, saying it out loud in the silence of his dorm room in different tones until he scrunched his eyes shut and just hit send. </p><p>	Delivered 18:53.</p><p>But in all the time it took Chanyeol contemplating the message, it only took Kyungsoo a couple minutes. It sat on read for one of them. The next, a short reply is all the boy offered:</p><p>										Sure. 18:55</p><p>Chanyeol remembers the sigh of relief he let out after watching that stupid typing bubble move for way too many seconds. He drops his phone on the mattress next to him But really? “Sure”? What was he suppos- *ping!*</p><p>			Are you free tomorrow, and if so, what time? 18:56  </p><p>That was a good question. What time is normal for people to meet to study? Where should they meet?</p><p>He felt like he should’ve thought this out more carefully. Maybe if the meeting was enough time before dinner, they could get food together… or should it be around a meal time and then he has an excuse to bring Kyungsoo food. What if he has allergies… or just doesn’t like what he brings… Before meal time it is.</p><p>	Yeah, is 16:00 good? We could get dinner together after if you wanted to. 18:59</p><p>He really can’t reasonably explain why he is so nervous. Kyungsoo is just cute, that was all. Just a cute boy. </p><p>His phone pinged again.</p><p>				Yeah, that’s fine. See you tomorrow. 19:01</p><p>Chanyeol got up from his bed and started doing a victory dance around his room, jumping around and pumping his hands in the air like he just won the Superbowl. </p><p>He remembers the thought that lingered at the back of his mind.</p><p>Maybe Kyungsoo could be more than a cute boy.</p><p>+</p><p>About a month after their first study meet-up, Chanyeol was still thinking about the boy in his accounting class night and day on top of staring at him for a minimum of an hour straight a few days a week.</p><p>He knew the studying was at least vaguely helping him since his quiz grades had risen from B’s to A’s, but he couldn’t help but feel hesitant about how often he thought of Kyungsoo. </p><p>Hell, the boy was all hard edges with a sharp jawline, and Chanyeol knew it was a little weird at minimum how the boy was always on his mind, but he liked to think their study sessions made it better. He could see Kyungsoo as a real person instead of making up a depiction or fantasy of him in his head, and to top it off, he got to know who he really was rather than imagining scenarios of inside jokes and a relationship. </p><p>He thought he was getting better too, so much so that his thoughts began to wonder elsewhere sometimes, giving Chanyeol more room for himself in his head. </p><p>That is, until Kyungsoo brought him coffee. To class.</p><p>This coffee was momentous, you see. Everything Chanyeol had convinced himself about the small boy that studied with him, the two of them laboring over their textbooks together for hours on end, neither ever paying for the other or doing anything that could possibly be perceived as anything more than acquaintances, maybe even friends. </p><p>But this... this was a step in the direction Chanyeol had nailed into his head that they weren't going to go. </p><p>"What?" Kyungsoo's voice interrupted Chanyeol's train of thought. "Why are you looking at me like that?" </p><p>Chanyeol looked at the coffee in front of him again and a little smile worked its way across his lips. He had remembered his order. </p><p>"No one's-" he croaked before coughing into his fist, "No one's ever brought me coffee before." He smiles up at Kyungsoo, bright and wide, "So thanks 'Soo."</p><p>Kyungsoo turned and hid the blush that crept to his cheeks from Chanyeol. "It's no problem." </p><p>Chanyeol looked at the slightly complex order on the cup and his face warms. </p><p>Maybe he was more than just a cute boy.</p><p>+</p><p>The little things only continued, and Kyungsoo never explained himself.</p><p> He started bringing Chanyeol coffee each time they had class. He randomly brought his little desserts from the café he stopped by on the way to their study meet-ups. He started leaving little smiley faces at the bottom of Chanyeol’s homework when they did peer revisions in class. </p><p>But whenever he was face to face with Chanyeol, his face was centimeters from emotionless. His sentences were short and blunt when he talked to Chanyeol, quiet ‘you’re welcomes’ and ‘thank yous’ sprinkling the air between them. </p><p> </p><p>Chanyeol didn’t let that stop him from filling the space between them with endless chatter though. He needed time to warm up to people, but Kyungsoo was like a favorite coat. He was comfortable and always there, and what little words he did speak… they wrapped around him in a warm familiarity he couldn’t quite explain. </p><p>He wanted them to be friends so bad he couldn’t help but try to return Kyungsoo’s friendly gestures.</p><p>And just like that, they were buying drinks and food and things for each other that they, dare he say, were vaguely acting like boyfriends. At least friends. But from all the shows he’s watched, all the books and manga and fanfiction he’s read, this was textbook boyfriend behavior. </p><p>The look on Kyungsoo’s face when Chanyeol walked into the library with his favorite coffee was nothing short of amusing. He looked almost confused and then he looked down at the black coffee and smiled a little glimpse of a smile. </p><p>“Thank you,” came the sweet baritone of his voice.</p><p> His voice… it’s so lovely. Chanyeol sighed, reflecting on the smaller man later. There sure were a lot of things he admired about the other.</p><p> That’s how Chanyeol found himself making a list of all the things he likes about Kyungsoo (it seemed rational at the beginning, okay?). He reasoned that it verifying that the attraction he felt wasn’t merely physical</p><p>Thinking deeply, he remembered pouring over what he should put down first on the list. What was so… magnetic about Kyungsoo that Chanyeol was always thinking about him? </p><p>He liked his laugh. It was rare and fleeting and he always covered his mouth, but Chanyeol absolutely adored the way his eyes squeezed his shut. He remembered seeing him laugh for the first time after Chanyeol made a snide comment about their professor’s horrendous shoes (they were fuckin’ neon yellow for God’s sake) and the boy was wheezing into his palm. </p><p>His smile was the best, a true glimmer of real sunlight even on the cloudiest of days. Their camaraderie only grew as the weeks passed. He loved way a small smile would work it’s way onto his lips as Chanyeol stuttered over his words when he thought Chanyeol wasn’t looking, or the way Kyungsoo only wrote in pen (yes, even in math) because he couldn’t stand the scratchiness of pencils, leaving ink circles around Chanyeol’s mistakes on his homework.</p><p>All these reasons still left Chanyeol with no definitive answers though. Was he really in love?  He looked down at the list and sighed. </p><p>+</p><p>Chanyeol and Kyungsoo were seated in a restaurant. </p><p>After they had finished their studying for the day, Kyungsoo asked him if he had wanted to go try out a new place he heard was amazing, so there they were. Seated across from one another, Chanyeol was sneaking glances at the boy in front of him while he rambled on about how absolutely stupendous presentation he had to watch in his spoken poetry class (to fulfill his required art credits). </p><p>“You wouldn’t even believe how long this dude’s slideshow was! The professor literally told us the PowerPoint only needed fifteen slides, and this man shows up with fifty! Fifty!” Chanyeol looks at Kyungsoo incredulously, who was too busy cutting into his food to see Chanyeol. “I mean, I’m not here to judge people, but dude you’re doing way too much.”</p><p>Chanyeol pauses, eyes flicking across the other’s face and he almost becomes breathless at how beautiful he looked.</p><p>He gazed at him, his mind wondering how one boy managed to be so stunning when Kyungsoo snapped fingers in front of his eyes. </p><p>“Hey!” Kyungsoo yelled at him. </p><p>Chanyeol blinked and shook his head. “What?”</p><p>“You were staring at me.” Kyungsoo said, looking at him blankly.</p><p>Chanyeol tried so hard to keep his cheeks from turning red.<br/>
He coughed. “Oh, it’s, uh, nothing.”</p><p>“Don’t lie to me!” Kyungsoo rolled his eyes at Chanyeol. “What? Do I have something on my face?” He brought his napkin to wipe at his chin. </p><p>Chanyeol shook his head, “No! No, you don’t. I just-” He looked at Kyungsoo who was raising his eyebrows at him. </p><p>“I just think you look nice. Uh. Tonight.” Chanyeol stuttered. </p><p>Kyungsoo’s eyes widened before he looked down at his plate. </p><p>Chanyeol felt his heart seize in his chest at his reaction. Was he really going to say nothing?</p><p>“Thanks.” He murmured. </p><p>Chanyeol’s cheeks warmed.</p><p>+</p><p>That being said, Chanyeol now is under the impression that he might be in love. With Kyungsoo. </p><p>He stumbles into Accounting late, two days after dinner, and in a rush since he was running thirty minutes late because of a dead phone. He plops down next to Kyungsoo, and he lets out a deep breath, huffing from running to class.</p><p>“Morning!” He waves at Kyungsoo, and the smaller boy pushes a coffee onto his desk. </p><p>“For you.” </p><p>“Thanks.” He says, lifting the cup and taking a sip. “My phone died.” </p><p>Class passes without a hitch and they’re finishing off peer review while everyone else is packing up and leaving. Kyungsoo is looking over the pencil marks littering the looseleaf of his notebook, and leans forward, tapping his pen against one of Chanyeol’s mistakes. </p><p>A piece of paper shifts and drops off of his desk and Kyungsoo scrambles to catch it as it falls, but Chanyeol leans down and swipes it when Kyungsoo misses. </p><p>“No!” Kyungsoo reaches for the paper and Chanyeol pulls it back, pulling it back behind him to read it.</p><p>And there were those six words scribbled in the smaller boy’s all caps handwriting:<br/>
THINGS I LIKE ABOUT PARK CHANYEOL</p><p>“What.” That’s all Chanyeol says.</p><p>His eyes scan the paper, and it’s a list much like his own besides the fact that it’s detailing things about himself rather than the beautiful boy sitting in front of him. </p><p>His eyes freeze. </p><p>	17. His voice. It’s very warm and calming, and I truly do enjoy it when he talks and tells<br/>
me stories.</p><p>The paper is snatched out of his hand. </p><p>“Sorry.” Kyungsoo says, shoving the paper in his bag and beginning to get up to leave when Chanyeol grabs his wrist. </p><p>“Where are you going? We shoul-” </p><p>“Chanyeol, if you’re just going to laugh in my face, there’s no need to talk about it.” Kyungsoo isn’t looking at him, instead he shuffles his feet on the ground and adjusts the strap of his book bag hanging on his shoulder now. “I know how this story goes.”</p><p>“How does it go then?” Chanyeol doesn’t miss a beat. “Enlighten me.”</p><p>“Oh, you don’t know? Well, if you go the classic route, you laugh in my face and insist how much of a jerk I was in the beginning. Maybe a ‘know-it-all,’ maybe a ‘snob,’ but either fits the bill. Then you leave me alone and hurt.” He pauses, looking Chanyeol dead in the eyes. “Or if we do ‘try it out,’ I find out the hard way that you’ve never ‘thought of me that way,’ or that it ‘just isn’t working,’ and you leave me broken but after gifting me a beautiful dose of unfortunately high hopes.”</p><p>They sit in silence, and Chanyeol is just processing everything Kyungsoo’s laid out for him, and what this means Kyungsoo’s been through. </p><p>“So? What is it? You can always pick either one and hope the ending changes. The same book’s conclusion is often drastically different if you read it a couple months later, right?” </p><p>“But I’m not the same book.” Chanyeol says.</p><p>Kyungsoo taps one shoe against the other. </p><p>“I’ve liked you for awhile, Kyungsoo. I was just trying to work up the nerve.” Chanyeol sighs, lacing his fingers through Kyungsoo’s. “And we don’t have to ‘try it out’ if you don’t want to, but…” He stops, waiting for Kyungsoo to look at him. To meet his eyes finally. “But I really want to.” </p><p>Kyungsoo looks at him and smiles, cheeks coloring under his gaze. Chanyeol stands and hovers over the smaller boy. </p><p>“Plus, who would I be to let the man of my dreams get away so easily?” He murmurs before pecking his cheek. </p><p>Kyungsoo leans back and punches him on the shoulder with his other hand. </p><p>“Oh, shut up you.” He says, the blush deeping on his cheeks. </p><p>“Oh, and by the way, I should probably admit that I have a list of things I like about you too.” Chanyeol says.</p><p>Kyungsoo looks at him with a blank expression. “You do not.”</p><p>“I do, pinky swear.” He says, chuckling. “What, you thought you were the only one?”</p><p>Kyungsoo hits his chest. “Let me see it! You saw mine, now let me see yours!”</p><p>“Pft, no way. That’s not happening.” Chanyeol laughs.</p><p>Kyungsoo yanks his hand from Chanyeol’s grip and crosses his arms, pouting. </p><p>Chanyeol starts cooing immediately, reaching to pinch the boy’s cheeks before Kyungsoo slaps them away, turning to storm off. </p><p>“Fine! I’ll let you see it.” Chanyeol sighs.He places all his other papers and folders in his bag along with his laptop. He flips his notebook to the last page and hands it to Kyungsoo. </p><p>Kyungsoo gasps. “You carry yours on you too?” </p><p>“Only if we’re meeting. So I can note new things I notice.” Chanyeol mumbles.</p><p>“My eyes? You like my eyes of all things! And my laugh!” Chanyeol rolls his eyes. Who wouldn’t love this man’s laugh. “Chanyeol!”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“YOU’VE OGLED MY ASS.” Kyungsoo punches his shoulder. “Nevermind, I change my mind. I hate you. I don’t like you in the least and I’m going to rip up that fucking list.”</p><p>Chanyeol laughs, throwing his head back before pulling Kyungsoo to leave. </p><p>“It’s better than me still! I can’t fucking believe you like my voice! I talk so much, and I never shut up and I can’t believe you like my voice of all things! I always figured you never cared about what I was saying and that I was just filling space with words and you’re always so quiet! Like, what am I supposed to do!”</p><p>+</p><p>one year later</p><p>They were laying on Chanyeol’s bed and watching Netflix when the protagonist yells something about a conspiracy when Chanyeol remembers.</p><p>“That reminds me, remember when we first met, babe?” Chanyeol says. “Well, really it was before we first met, but in the beginning of that accounting class how everyone was sitting by someone else besides us?”</p><p>Kyungsoo looks up at him and nods.</p><p>“I used to think you sat away from the crowd on purpose so that we’d have to work together. It was like this conspiracy I had about you as my dark knight who was just planning on working with me, or I guess I just hoped you liked me secretly.” Chanyeol sighs. “Thinking back on that, that was sort of weird of me. Wishful thinking in the least.”</p><p>Kyungsoo laughs, leaning up and pecking his mouth. </p><p>“You’re smarter than I planned, Mr. Park Chanyeol.” He says against his lips.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hello! welcome back! long time no see! i'm terribly sorry for disappearing for so long!!! </p><p>to be honest i was really scared i lost my love for writing for a moment there, but with everything going on.... my attention has been elsewhere. i plan to be updating my 16 chaptered baeksoo every tuesday so look forwards to that if you're into that, and then I also have a lot of fic fests i'm in that are finishing soon-ish!!! so look for me in honey boy, shall we chen, november rain, oh lovely day, and monster fest!! </p><p>this piece was written for a reader and twitter friend who won my 500 follower giveaway of 2.5k (I got a little carried away) so if you wanna shoot your shot at 1k, you can find the link for it below! otherwise, thank you SO much for being here, for reading, and for supporting me! i truly appreciate it my dearest friends &lt;3</p><p> <br/>you can also find me on <a href="https://www.twitter.com/xiuwusoo">twitter</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>